Recommended Posts

RetrAO Cafe

Enjoy the nostalgic inducing feel of the 80's and 90's era with bright neons, MORE NEONS, the latest in cinematic VHS and the good Ol' CRT effects that will surely awaken the inner 80's child in you.

RetrAO Cafe started as a theme variation of "Minimal-AO" by @eatkinola with the main focus of recreating a tribute to the golden era of gaming that bloomed through the arcades and home consoles with customized artwork and retro overlay effects that compliments the gaming pop-culture from the past. RetrAO Cafe at its core is based on eatkinola's Minimal-AO thus they share the sameRecommendation Setup and general guidelines of the original theme.

Moving forward there will be three versions of the RetrAO Cafe theme:

RetrAO Cafe Classic- This will be the 2017 theme build but with the fixes and quality of life improvements to make it compatible to LB 9.4+ updates﻿. As such, please be aware that this theme will only work on systems with LB 9.4 and above.

RetrAO Cafe 2.0- This major overhaul of the theme have been in development for 2 years and includes more than 70 customization options and new features and views, etc. Coming soon

RetrAO Cafe Lite- This version of the theme is intended to use light resources for weaker systems and special hardwares such as GPD Win and Pi systems. The development of this theme will continue after the release of RetrAO Cafe Classic and RetrAO Cafe 2.0

RetrAO Cafe Classic v1.0 Changelog:

Spoiler

RetrAO Cafe Classic v1.0 Changelog:

Paving the way for Next Generation!

New: Added more platform Neon Logos by the talented@ea4492 to raise the supported systems to more than 100 Clear Logos including futureproof consoles such as Nintendo Switch and Sony Playstation 4

New: Platform wheel 1 completely redesigned to better showcase the Neon Logos by @ea4492 Overhaul: RetrAO Cafe 1.6 have been renamed to RetrAO Cafe Classic that comes with fixes and quality of life improvements to make it compatible with LB 9.4+ systems. The next major evolution of this theme will be called RetrAO Cafe 2.0 and is coming soon!

Overhaul: Added ActivePlatform and ActiveGame properties when appropriate for a smoother and faster browsing experience. The theme should have less stuttering compared to previous releases

Added: Updated Platform View 1 into a fullscreen video platform view with full overlay effects support that utilizes @Grila Wheel Fade codes. This view is a teaser for more views to come in RetrAO Cafe 1.7

Added: Dark shade effect for Platform View 1 that automatically kicks in when Clear Wheel Logo is active on screen and automatically fades out with the Wheel.

RetrAO Cafe v1.6 Changelog:

It's all about enhancing text legibility and aesthetics!

Added: Introduced an Opacity slider to allow the user to decide how opaque they want the Alpha Panels to look

Added: Retro overlay that mimics the CRT's scanlines effect for the Background Video that can be toggled ON/OFF for each View in RetrAO Cafe 1.6

Fixed: Re-edited most of the original artwork for a more consistent look, made the logos more neon to enhance the retro look of the theme.

RetrAO Cafe v1.5 Changelog:

Renamed Minimal-RetrAO to RetrAO Cafe. The "AO" was retained as a nod to eatkinola's theme but the name change signifies the change of direction of this theme moving forward.

Added: New views for Platform/Game wheel 2 that are based on Minimal-AOX Theme. More views are planned in the future.

Added: Retro overlays that mimics the CRT's flickering scanlines effect and 80's noise glitch for a more realistic feel on Games Wheels View 3 (looks great on 4:3 videos)

Added: Custom artwork that enhances the retro look of the theme (Neon logos, Favorite/Broken/Completed icons, panels, etc). Also updated the platform clear logos by @ea4492 included in the theme to v1.2

Added: New Font styles and colors on various views across the theme. (The old fonts are also included in the font folder titled "Classic Style 1.0")

Added: New video backgrounds in the additional media folder that were edited from my side to suit the art direction of the theme, removed some of the video backgrounds from the previous additional media folder.

Fixed: Cleaned the interface from the symbols/adornments of the original theme, re-edited most of the original artwork for a more consistent look.

Fixed: Performance enhancements across the entire theme by changing "Selected.Games/Platforms" into "Active.Games" where appropriate as well as some other optimizations. The theme should perform better and much smoother than before.

Read the supplied text file in the Fonts folder and install theme fonts as per the guideline instructions

IMPORTANT:RetrAO Cafe Classic uses plugins as of v1.0 so make sure you unblock the plugins found in ...\LaunchBox\Themes\RetrAO Cafe Classic\Plugins by highlighting Grila's plugin and then mouse right-click-->properties-->then scroll down and check "unblock"-->Apply

Choose RetrAO Cafe Classic in Options > Views > Theme

Set Video Playback Engine to VLC in Options > Videos

Refresh the platform wheel cache under options

Restart Big Box

OPTIONAL: In order to fully enjoy the theme download the "RetrAO_Cafe_MEDIA_V2.zip" and follow the guidelines on how install Big Box Intro and add additional Background Videos as per the supplied instruction text files

Downloads:

RetrAO_Cafe_Classic.zip: CORE theme file ---> Contains the Theme folder and the Fonts folder that are the only requirement to use this theme (144 MB)

RetrAO_Cafe_MEDIA_V2.zip: Optional but highly recommended additional media and theme backgrounds that will enhance the nostalgic experience of the theme (367 MB)

Special thanks and credit goes to @eatkinola for granting his permission and assisting me in finalizing the theme for LB 9.4+. @ea4492 for the use of his Neon Platform Clear Logos and @keltoigael for granting his permission to include the awesome CityHunter background videos that can be found in the additional media folder in the download section (only included video is CyberPunk 2077, check out the rest of his amazing work Here). Also hats off to @dmjohn0x for his amazing intro video that is included in the additional media folder (permission granted), and last but not least @Zombeaver for the usage of his Platform Banners in the video showcase which can be downloaded Here.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The video is actually called CityHunter, which the theme is also named after. I don't really think its a good idea to repackage media that is already for download like the start up video and theme background videos, especially without asking the people who donated them. I am by no means being negative or bashing you but it takes away from others. You should just point people to those areas and say download X to make X work etc.

The positive I like your edit. You and @eatkinola can get together and brain storm more ideas and work together similar to @CriticalCid and myself.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The video is actually called CityHunter, which the theme is also named after. I don't really think its a good idea to repackage media that is already for download like the start up video and theme background videos, especially without asking the people who donated them. I am by no means being negative or bashing you but it takes away from others. You should just point people to those areas and say download X to make X work etc.

The positive I like your edit. You and @eatkinola can get together and brain storm more ideas and work together similar to @CriticalCid and myself.

A big fan of your work and your background videos! (The new Akira Video is amazing btw!)

I apologize if I offended you in any way as this was not my intention. I'll update the download section by removing your background videos from the optional media folder and will contact @dmjohn0x and others for their content approval as well.

Would you like me to point people to download additional background from your download page (I will include a link to your download page in the Minimal-RetrAO homepage). If you do not prefer me sharing your link then I can totally understand and will respect your decision.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

You can for sure use my videos. I didn't mean to come off as saying you couldn't. I honestly don't offer the CityHunter video separate from the theme itself so I can understand wanting to use it and offering as a choice. Just make sure to ask first, you can use my media.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Is there a way to disable the background video when looking at a platform? My system stutters when playing the game video and the background

Hello @latin625 , sorry for the late response as i'm busy with work lately but i'll try and assist you whenever I can.

To answer your first question, yes, you can change the video background into a static wallpaper that will help reduce the resources and you can disable video/image background all together:

1. To change the Video Background go to the RetrAO Cafe theme folder-->Styles--> right click AOStyle.xaml and open with a notepad (I use Notepad++ but you can use any software you like)

2. The AOStyle.xaml is the theme's settings file, here you can customize the theme to your heart's contents including but not limited to font (size, color, style, etc) overlays (such as scanlines, vignette, CRT effects, etc) and background settings to name a few with detailed instructions written in green above each option. Let's focus on background settings for now:

2a. The highlighted texts indicate the following:

i) "Solid-Midnight" is the name of the wallpaper I used in my tutorial, you can put any wallpaper you want to use in the theme at \LaunchBox\Themes\RetrAO Cafe\Images\Panels\Skins\PNG folder. Change "Solid-Midnight" to the name of your wallpaper in the AOStyle file (i.e if your wallpaper name is Outer-Haven84 make sure it is written exactly as the file name in the AOStyle.xaml)

ii) "Kung-Fury" is the name of the video background used in RetrAO Cafe theme. You can add additional video backgrounds at \LaunchBox\Themes\RetrAO Cafe\Images\Panels\Skins\MP4 folder. Changing the video background instructions is the same as wallpaper above.

iii) This is the important bit, if you want to enable wallpaper instead of video background write AOSkinImg_ON in the highlighted area, to disable wallpaper background write AOSkinImg_OFF

iv) To disable the video background write AOSkinVid_OFF in the highlighted area, if you want to enable the video background again write AOSkinVid_ON.

2b. So to answer your question set AOSkinImg_ON and AOSkinVid_OFF and you'll end up with something similar to this: (based on Solid-Midnight wallpaper, you can change the background to anything you desire)

3. Optionally you can also enable game fanart with the background wallpaper option to make the theme more aesthetically appealing: (Change AOImgGamePaper_OFF to AOImgGamePaper_ON)

End result

On 4/8/2017 at 9:53 PM, latin625 said:

How do you get the look that is in the DEMO? What are the settings?

I can help you with the settings but I require more details.. can you share with me some screenshots of your current setup and also provide me some screenshots of how you want the theme to look like so that I can better assist you?

I was hard at work for the RetrAO Café 1.7 that would include 2-3 new views and more customization options but decided to put the project on a halt due to RL work accumulating and also due to the fact that everytime I feel I'm close to completion @Jason Carr surprises us with a new launchbox update that brings new features to BigBox I'll wait for Launchbox 7.9 to see what new features I can include in my theme before uploading the 1.7 update.

@Jason Carr Since we're talking about Launchbox 7.9 I'm not sure if it was fixed in the beta as I haven't tried BigBox lately but I'm having a slight issue with Playlist Clear Logos. I created a custom Playlist Clear Logos for my theme but the issue is that if I put the logos in \RetrAO Café\images\etc\platforms\clear logos\ folder similar to how we insert theme specific platform logos BigBox will ignore the new logos for playlists. The only solution for now is to insert each and every playlist logo to its playlist folder under launchbox\...\image\playlists\Atari classics\clear logo.. Is it possible that you create a new folder called playlists in BigBox theme folder similar to how Platforms folder is now implemented? It would make customizing theme specific playlists artwork much easier for us.

I apologies if my explanation is not clear I'm currently at my office but will provide some screenshots to illustrate my point once I get back home if you want.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

That makes perfect sense @SNAK3ATER; I don't believe I ever added the playlist clear logo support to the custom themes. I'll put that on my list though; definitely excited to see more views for the theme!

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Great theme! I've got it up and running, its amazing. I'm having one issue I hope someone can help with.

When a game is selected, there is a little TV visible in the upper right to display the game play video (not a background video). While I have all the videos download and they play in LaunchBox, I can' get them to play in this theme (they're all arcade games). Is it looking for game play videos in a specific directory?

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Thanks for the help. I just tried that but no luck. I've attached a few images.

The first image LB and the game play video runs no prob.

The next two images are different views in BB. I circled the area where I think the game play video should be running but it's not. Instead a placeholder video called static.mp4 plays. I looked in the theme to find reference to static.mp4 or game play videos but couldn't find one.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Thanks for the help. I just tried that but no luck. I've attached a few images.

The first image LB and the game play video runs no prob.

The next two images are different views in BB. I circled the area where I think the game play video should be running but it's not. Instead a placeholder video called static.mp4 plays. I looked in the theme to find reference to static.mp4 or game play videos but couldn't find one.

I'm currently on a vacation and will be back next week so I have limited access to internet but i'll try to assist you whenever possible

Based on the screenshots it seems that Bigbox cannot pull media information for some reason as the "No signal" effect only plays when the selected game lacks media files (video snaps or images) but from what I can tell you do have the media files on launchbox so that's indeed a weird situation..

Try the following solutions and let me know what works for you:

1- Launch BigBox and go to options and select RetrAO Cafe as your theme, then go to video options and make sure the recommended video engine is set to "VLC" and also make sure you tick all the options as well

2- If the problem still persists try downloading another theme and check if you're facing the same issue in other themes as well

Also share with me a screenshot of the video option in your Bigbox and please upload a zip file containing your RetrAO Cafe theme folder and I will try to replicate the issue on my system once i'm back next week

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Quick question, ideally, I'll show my various platforms, and then when I click into it, I'll show genres as default (vs. games list). Is it possible to customize it to do that? For example, when I load it up and select Arcade, I'd love to show Action / Fighting / Shooters on the left vertical wheel. Can that be done? I couldn't figure it out in the Options settings to remember that view.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Would you happen to have some time to point me in the direction of adding a bezel frame effect/PNG overlay to the video themes? It's a similar overlay that's seen in RocketLauncher's bezels, where the beveled black frame wraps the viewport during gameplay. I've tried adding the bezel frame to the 'wheel1-alpha.png' but it just blends into the video theme. I feel like that's due to the masking that's being done on that layer.